- [Narrator] Funding for this program is supported in part Minnesota's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and these supporters.

(upbeat band music) (audience cheering) - [Host] Your favorite local musicians like you've never seen them before.

Intimate collaborations between iconic artists and the musicians they want you to know about.

- Action.

- [Host] Tonight, Grammy-nominated Cory Wong, featuring Misty Boyce.

It's all happening now on the legendary 7th Street Entry stage.

(audience cheering) (lively music) - I think instrumental music as a whole has gotten a little bit of a bad rap.

A lot of instrumental musicians when they play, it feels a little self-serving.

It's like, look what I can do (imitates guitar play).

But I think if you are writing music that is for people, it comes from a different place and will be received a different way.

(upbeat band music) (audience clapping) (upbeat band music) - Let's go, move your body.

(upbeat band music) (audience members clapping) (upbeat band music) (lively band music) (audience cheers) - All right.

How we doing, we having fun yet?

(audience cheers) (lively drum music) Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, keep the beat going though.

(band members laugh) (lively drum music) Dan White's playing a back-line bari sax, which means it's not his instrument.

(audience exclaims) His instrument has a low C on it, and this one only goes down to B-flat.

(audience members laugh) (lively drum music) If we only had the extra $35 to get the low C.

(band members laugh) But instead we bought all these cool tube lights.

(audience cheers) But the fun thing about the saxophone is if you stick your fist in it, it'll go down a whole step.

I'm not joking.

Play your lowest note, Dan.

(saxophone note) Kenny, help him out.

(audience cheers) (sax music) (audience cheers) (lively drum music) - Faster, Kenny.

(upbeat band music) (audience cheering) - You can't even look them in the eye (laughs).

(groovy band music) Hey, get that key change.

(lively band music) I think who I am as an artist has a lot to do with where I grew up, here in Minnesota.

Like, the energy of my music comes from the punk rock, and the rhythm comes from cutting my teeth around all the Minneapolis funk community, and the harmony and the melody comes from the jazz world that I grew up adoring and listening to and studying in college.

And that whole artist quarter scene, the jazz scene, kind of taking a bunch of us as apprentices, I want to blend all these worlds of music that I grew up listening to that formed who I am.

It really kind of helps guide what I do.

(lively band music) (audience cheers) (soft band music) (audience cheers) Being as it's a hometown show, for whatever reason, I get more self-conscious than other shows because I have to see many of these people again.

(audience laughs) It's like my middle school band director is here.

(audience cheers) It's like he knows the real me so I gotta hide behind sunglasses and not make eye contact 'cause I feel like a phony.

But it is so wonderful to be able to travel the world and then come back here and play at home.

(audience cheers) Thank you.

(lively drum music) (audience cheering) Well, this is a tune called "Direct Flyte."

(audience members cheer) Thank you.

And the way that I spelled it is an homage to the studio that was here in the Twin Cities called Flyte Tyme.

A lot of great records there that inspired us.

So this is our homage to that.

(audience members cheer) (funky band music) Let's go.

(lively saxophone music) (lively drum music) (saxophone solo) (audience cheers) (lively band music) Yeah, get the chords, man, get the chords, let them know.

(soft bass guitar music) (soft drum music) (cars whooshing) - So I grew up going to Bunker's, which is a club down the road in Minneapolis from here.

Occasionally, Prince would come down and hang out and watch, and sometimes he would sit in.

And when he would come in, I would just turn on the the Prince filter on everything that I was playing.

And the drummer, Michael Bland, looked over at me at one point and just yelled, he's like, "Hey, if Prince wanted to hear somebody sound like Prince, he'd get up here and play himself.

Quit trying to sound like Prince, start sounding like you."

It's like, oh, really?

After a few more times, of Prince coming down, one of his people said, "Hey, Prince wants to say hi."

He had this incredible compliment that I will still carry with me forever where he was just like, "You got such a great sound.

You've got a voice on the instrument, it's so cool.

You've got your thing."

That was another level of permission that I was able to give myself of, ok, I have something.

And if other people can recognize it, maybe I can also start to acknowledge it for myself.

(lively guitar work) If there's ever a time where the internet is really coming at me saying, "Oh, he does the same thing on blah, blah, blah, and oh, he just does this, da-da-da-da-da-da," I can at least look back and say, "Oh, well, Prince said that I had it and did it in a unique way."

So it gives me a little more motivation to say, "Ah, yeah, all right, internet, yeah," which can be hard to do.

(lively band music) (audience cheers) (upbeat music) - [Presenter] On The One.

- What's happening?

This is On The One.

Today, I'm doing a little breakdown of my session for Bluebird.

People ask me all the time ... Playing and performing and recording music is wonderful, but another aspect that's just as important to me is sharing the process.

I'll give you a rundown of what's actually in this session, what all the instruments are, and who's playing.

(upbeat music) So I have a YouTube channel where I do production breakdowns.

That's fun, that's fun.

I have tour vlogs where we talk about the gear and show how we rehearse tunes.

I'm costume tech.

Let's get a little heat going.

I think a lot of people are afraid to share their process, afraid that people are gonna steal their tricks or I don't know.

I am more than happy to share anything about my artistry and my process because so much of what I bring to the table is also in my life experience.

So whether somebody's better than me at guitar or producing or writing, it kind of doesn't matter because they're gonna bring their life experience to it, I'm gonna bring my life experience to it, and that expression, if it's authentic, there's no way it's not gonna be different.

(upbeat band music) I think the thing that I bring to the table for the guitar is more compelling in the rhythm world than it is in the lead world.

So being able to explore the space of what it looks like to have a rhythm player in the lead is really fun.

(upbeat band music) (audience cheers) I think of my band as rhythm section and horn section.

Rhythm section, we're putting together the groove and feel of something, and the horn section a lot of times is the focal point or the melody, and we kind of trade off on parts and focus.

And my job is to make sure that they blend together to feel like one unit.

(electronic keys) (audience cheering) (audience clapping) (upbeat band music) (audience cheering) - [Audience Member] Awesome.

Yes.

(audience cheering) Awesome.

Yes.

- A couple years ago, I got called to play a show at the Fitzgerald Theater Live From Here, the old Prairie Home Companion.

And that evening, it was a guest host and it was Jon Batiste.

- For our Instrumental Break tonight, we're looking to hometown hero, Cory Wong, who's playing guitar tonight in the house band.

(audience applauds) (acoustic guitar) - At the end of the evening, Jon said, "Let's play some more music together.

When are you gonna be in New York?"

I have no plans to be in New York, but I was like, "You know, oddly enough, I'm gonna be there next month, dude.

Let's hang out and play some music together."

He said, "Well, great, because I'm the host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and you should just come hang on the show and play for a week, and we should go record some songs together."

Like, "Ok, cool, yeah, let's do it."

(audience laughs) (gentle piano music) We went into the studio at night, and for three nights, it was literally 35 minutes, press record, play down these six song ideas, and then just leave the studio (laughs).

(audience members laugh) I didn't know what was gonna happen with it, and all of a sudden we got nominated for a Grammy.

(audience cheers) Which was very much a life lesson there.

Sometimes you just do something that just feels like a creative expression and it takes you 30 minutes, and it's the thing that people love rather than the thing you spent hundreds of hours on and your entire heart and soul, which is ok.

(gentle music) (lively drum music) One, two, three, four.

(lively band music) Break it down, break it down, break it down.

yeah, come on, hey.

(audience clapping) (lively keyboard music) (twinkling keys) Hey, come on.

(lively band music) (audience cheering) Go.

(lively band music) (audience cheers) (gentle band music) All the way out ... I only say yes to things that are going to be fun.

I turn down a lot of things that would be great for my career but would be miserable to do.

And I wanna surround myself with people that are gonna have fun with me, that are gonna have the same dedication to excellence.

We wanna have fun because that's gonna help us to keep wanting to do this for the rest of our lives.

Remember the chorus is just three times.

The wonderful thing about having so many musicians on stage is there's a lot of textures that I can draw from.

I know that anybody on that stage could totally be the one in the front the whole gig.

(audience applauding) - [Audience Member] Bravo.

- Well, if you're familiar with the Minneapolis music scene, you may or may not know this, but there's a lot of musicians around the world that when I say, "You're from Minneapolis?"

They go, "You ever hear of the saxophone player, Kenni Holmen?"

(audience cheers) Do I know the saxophone player, Kenni Holmen, are you kidding me?

Kenni's the kind of cat that will do 40 gigs in a week and show up completely prepared and blow everybody's socks off every night.

(audience cheers) And we're fortunate to have him in the band.

Kenni also does birthday parties, and this is one of his bits that he does at birthday parties.

Let's hold on, let's quiet on set, quiet on set.

Let's get the birthday party shtick going, Kenni.

(growling sax music) (animal noises) (audience laughs) (audience applauds) Now you can see why it's the first thing people ask.

- (laughs) It's just that.

(lively band music) (audience cheers) Kenny Holmen.

(audience cheers) How did your interview go?

This is Misty Boyce, a wonderful singer-songwriter, keyboard player.

I know Misty just through the music world, and also happens to be married to one of my very close friends who I grew up playing music with.

And I thought, wow, we've never really done a show together, so this feels like the perfect time to do it.

- I play keyboards and guitar, and sing backup for bands like Lord Huron and artists like Sara Bareilles, and I've played with Ed Sheeran, and Sting, and Børns.

But I am also an artist in my own right, and I've been doing that for as long as I can remember.

(gentle music) ♪ You wanna make amends ♪ You wanna make up for your sins with champagne ♪ ♪ But talk ain't worth a lot ♪ If you won't change I was born and raised in New Mexico, which, that wasn't my place, especially when I realized that I wanted to be an artist.

So I set my eyesight on New York.

I needed to make money, so I started playing for other people, but always while trying to be an artist.

♪ Charades ♪ You wanna take control And then I decide New York is not home, so I moved out to LA.

The whole time in LA I spent on tour 'cause I just get to go from like one gig to the next, and I'm kind of feeling like that might be home, but as soon as COVID hit, all of it stopped screechingly.

And then somewhere magically in that horrible year, I get to reconnect with this guy, Steven Paul Goold II, who is a Minneapolis treasure.

(audience cheers) And we start dating.

And then all of a sudden we don't fit in our one-bedroom apartment in LA, and I'm starting to feel like my desires don't fit in our one-bedroom apartment in LA.

So we made the decision to move here.

And even though I've only been here a year, I've never felt more at home anywhere on the planet.

(audience cheers) And it turns out that home is a quest I've been on for my whole life.

♪ Acting like everything's okay ♪ I was desperately searching for this feeling that I've found here.

So thank you for being ... (audience cheers) Thank you for being my home.

♪ Charades ♪ Charades ♪ Charades ♪ Charades (lively band music) Woo.

(lively band music) Woo.

(lively band music) (audience cheers) (gentle guitar music) What music did for me when I was a kid is it met me alone in my room, sad, and it made me feel better.

It made me more than better, it gave me a reason to live.

And if I can do that for somebody, that's my goal.

♪ Never saw it coming ♪ You gave me all your love ♪ Then you started running ♪ And pulling back hard ♪ Why'd you fly me in ♪ Introduce me to your friends ♪ Make me think that I could win ♪ ♪ With a losing hand ♪ To let me down ♪ Players gonna play ♪ Quitters gonna lose ♪ Hate the game ♪ Dance the blues ♪ I can't blame you ♪ I've been in your shoes ♪ That don't make the pain easier ♪ ♪ Paying dues ♪ To let me down ♪ Let me down easy ♪ Heartbreaker ♪ Leave taker ♪ I met my match ♪ Won't ya tell my maker ♪ To let me down ♪ To let me down ♪ To let me down easy One more time.

(gentle band music) - When you put yourself out there as an artist under your own name, you're immediately under the scrutiny of the internet, and it can be obviously very vulnerable.

- I think the benefit of being young is you don't know any better, and I just kind of went out there and started doing it.

I've had to become braver as I've realized how humiliating this can be.

And honestly, I haven't gotten a lot of hate on the internet yet, and I think that's because I'm not famous enough yet so I'm really looking forward to someone saying, "Misty Boyce sucks," because then I'll know I've done something right.

♪ Heartbreaker ♪ Leave taker ♪ Oh I met my match ♪ Won't ya tell my maker ♪ To let me down ♪ To let me down ♪ To let me down easy ♪ You can't change ♪ A man that's made ♪ Better off to spend your days spinning plates ♪ (audience cheers) (drums) - [Cory] Just pull back and- - Can I get some more horns in mine?

- [Cory] How do you personally manage coming alongside somebody else's vision but bringing your own voice into it when you're a side musician?

- The best compliment I ever got when I got hired to play with Sam Smith was I went into that audition and just did my thing, but later he was like, "You are the only one that I felt played the song."

I know some of the keyboard players who audition, I'm like, they're so much better than me.

But that's not always what people are looking for.

They just want the song to be served, not to hear how flashy you are.

And so as a musician, I've tried to own that that's what I bring is I bring musicianship, not flash or technique, necessarily.

- You're not crediting yourself enough.

You're a great keyboard player, you just know when to do the things- - I do play some fast notes sometimes, but it has to be in a very abstract way.

- She's too humble.

Well, welcome to Minnesota.

This is now, yeah, she's becoming a nice Minnesotan here, deflecting the compliments.

- Yeah, please don't compliment me, I crumble inside.

(gentle music) - I always say on tour we have to, at some point, do a Steely Dan song.

I'm going to invite Misty up to sing a Steely Dan song with us.

(audience cheers) - [Audience Member] Awesome.

Yes.

Awesome.

(audience cheering) (calm band music) ♪ Times are hard you're afraid to pay the fee ♪ ♪ So you find yourself somebody ♪ ♪ Who can do the job for free ♪ When you need a bit of loving ♪ ♪ 'Cause your man is out of town ♪ ♪ That's the time you get me running ♪ ♪ 'Cause you know I'll be around ♪ ♪ I'm a fool to do your dirty work oh yeah ♪ ♪ I don't wanna do your dirty work no more ♪ ♪ I'm a fool to do your dirty work oh yeah ♪ ♪ Light the candle put the lock upon the door ♪ ♪ You have sent the maid home early ♪ ♪ Like a thousand times before ♪ Like the castle in its corner in a medieval game ♪ ♪ I foresee terrible trouble ♪ And I stay here just the same ♪ ♪ I'm a fool to do your dirty work oh yeah ♪ ♪ I don't wanna do your dirty work no more ♪ ♪ I'm a fool to do your dirty work oh yeah ♪ (saxophone solo) ♪ Oh I'm a fool to do your dirty work ♪ ♪ Oh yeah ♪ I don't wanna do your dirty work no more ♪ ♪ No more ♪ I'm a fool to do your dirty work oh yeah ♪ ♪ Oh yeah ♪ I don't wanna do your dirty work no more ♪ ♪ No more ♪ No more ♪ No more ♪ Yeah fool ♪ I don't wanna do your dirty work oh yeah ♪ ♪ I'm a fool to do your dirty work oh yeah ♪ ♪ I don't wanna do your dirty work oh yeah ♪ ♪ I don't wanna do your dirty work ♪ ♪ No more (audience applauds) - Misty Boyce.

(audience cheers) Yes.

(audience applauding) Yes.

(lively sax music) (audience applauding) When I think about where my goals are now and what I want to accomplish, I think it's easy to say, I wanna sell this amount of tickets or play this kind of venue in these cities.

But I'm learning to define success by how fulfilled something makes me feel, and whether I feel like I've really accomplished what it is I wanted to accomplish artistically.

I have three kids, and it's important for my kids to see and for the world to see people living out really something that means something to them, living out a calling and a duty to something else.

For me, I think of myself as an ambassador for instrumental music, and an ambassador for the guitar, and for showing that it's important to really dedicate your time and energy into the excellence of a craft.

Oh, you wanna hear another song?

Oh, how wonderful.

(audience cheers) I wanna be great at what I do, and this is my life and I'm gonna pour my heart into it.

(upbeat band music) (upbeat bass guitar music) (upbeat drum music) (rapid guitar strumming) (upbeat drum music) (upbeat lead guitar music) (upbeat drum music) (upbeat band music) KG.

(upbeat keyboard music) Take it up a beat.

(upbeat sax music) (upbeat band music) (audience cheers) Thank you very much.

(audience applauding) - [Audience Member] Yes.

- [Presenter] This program was produced with The Current, and made possible by Minnesota's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and these stage supporters.

(gentle music)